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Before sending SB 19 to a vote Tuesday night, the author of the bill, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, removed a major provision that would have given teachers a $1,000 pay raise because she couldn’t guarantee funding for it in the bill.

The provision was a point of contention for representatives from teacher groups, who testified during a Senate committee hearing over the weekend that they didn’t want public schools to have to cut staff and student programs to pay for the raises.

“My intent was and continues to be that we provide a pay raise for our teachers,” Nelson said. “Teachers are the backbone of our education system.”

Jennifer Canaday with the Association of Texas Professional Educators applauded the elimination of the teacher raise provision.

“We are relieved that the Senate has removed language from SB 19 today that would have pressured already cash-strapped school districts and their local taxpayers to find money on their own to comply with an unfunded pay raise mandate from the legislature,” she said.

The bill would spend $193 million to give a one-time $600 bonus to teachers who have six to 10 years of experience and $1,000 bonus to teachers with at least 11 years of experience in September 2018.

The bill would additionally pump $212 million into the system to cut in half expected deductibles for retirees under the age of 65 to $1,500 and lower premiums for retirees over 65 by $25 to $121. Without the cuts, some retirees are expected to pay deductibles that are ten times as high as what they’re paying now. Lawmakers have struggled over the years to keep the Teacher Retirement System of Texas solvent because funding for it is not keeping up with high costs of health care.

The bill will be funded through delaying payments to Medicaid managed care organizations from the next 2018-2019 biennium to the following biennium. Nelson said officials with Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees the state’s Medicaid program, have said the method of payment won’t affect services.

Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, said that he wasn’t sold on the way the state would pay for the bill. “It’s a form of deficit spending that I have a real hard time agreeing with,” he said.

Some of the other major concerns that senators had brought up during the discussion of the bill Tuesday was that funding for bonuses and the retirement system wasn’t guaranteed in the long run. Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said that he questioned the commitment of his fellow senators.

“The teachers in my judgment and in their minds have the right to be cynical and say you can do more,” said Whitmire, adding that Nelson prioritized cutting taxes for businesses last session when she could’ve used that effort on teachers.

After the bill passed, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, said that he is committed to funding the bill next legislative session.

Two amendments to the bill failed to pass, including one by Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, who tried to make permanent the increases to the teacher retirement system and another by Sen. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, who wanted to use any state border security money that was freed up by federal funding to pay for the bill’s provisions. Nelson said that Watson’s amendment was too expensive and that there were too many unknown factors in Garcia’s.